London Mayor Boris Johnson will scrap the western extension to the congestion charge zone.
Two thirds of people and businesses which responded to a survey wanted the extension dropped. The Mayor's office received 28,000 responses and 86 per cent of businesses and 67 per cent of individuals were against it. Only 19 per cent …

I wonder...

Nice one Boris

I love cycling past people stuck in traffic jams, so I'll be looking forward to doing it more in the future. Shame about the air pollution, but then I don't live in West London and don't have any kids to worry about.

Although it will be annoying to have to listen to motorists complaining about traffic jams even more now they don't have the congestion charge to moan about.

Still - perhaps they could tarmac over some of those annoying parks to make room for the cars?

Now if only...

...they could also can those stupid emission zone signs and its accompanying taxes.

What really shows this up for its actual use was where one body laments the passing of the zone extension because of lost revenue. The charge was meant to be a disincentive to driving in the area primarily, not an excuse to milk the public. Good riddance!

It's a shame

Tory mayor squanders more income to create fiscal nightmare

So Boris is scrapping the western zone, costing the city £50m a year, plus a few more in de-implementation. He's spending something like £120m a year phasing out nearly-new bendy buses to replace them with a new design that will cost something like £100m, and extra buses to replace the lost capacity . He's handed £30m back to the oil barons of Venezuela, scrapped a gas guzzler charge worth another £30m. Are you keeping count?

So of course next January transport fares are skyrocketing, many to the tune of 11% or 12%. Major and popular transport projects have been scrapped or scaled back, and he has the audacity to go to Brown cap in hand for £15m to fund the essential South London line upgrade. Meanwhile there is still a strong possibility of council tax hikes to cover all these extra costs and financial holes.

Re:Tory mayor squanders more income to create fiscal nightmare

On the subject of bendy busses, I hate them with a vengeance. They took up 2 lanes around corners, danger to 2 wheeled road users.

If Ken listened the people in the first place, us as Londoners would not have incurred the costs you are talking about.

Before you respond with your political crap, I did vote for Ken thinking he is nuKen and his alternatives were Uncle Albert, LibDems whose anser is "tax increase for the high earners" to every question, or some tree huggerparty.

THE BIG QUESTION - Will the Camera stay?

Let's it it gets scrapped 2010, is anybody asking if they are going to find a "Use" for these camera afterwards (i.e. "National Security"), or are they gonna take them down (because sat technology is now already doing the job for them perfectly well right now).

@ Paul

“to cover all these extra costs and financial holes.”

How is such holes be created when there is an additional yearly surplus which is then subsequently ended? If anything, surely there should be a mountain of cash left over !?! So why should council tax rates be any higher than before?

“He's handed £30m back to the oil barons of Venezuela,”

How has he done that? More interestingly, how has he done that without getting much more than that back via the tax/duty that sits on that amount?

We know the fines from speed cameras rakes in more than £50M, yet it is claimed this isn’t for revenue – go figure!

Stakeholder consultation?

If the consultation of 'stakeholders'(wtf) is the same as with that of allowing motorbikes in to bus lanes then don't expect too much. The bus lane consultation invited everyone except for pedestrian and cycling groups.

You only need to check on the 'interested parties' in the consultation to work out which way the decision will go.

HAHAHAH you dumb fools

You really are suckers for punishment arn't you, Oh Boris is scrapping the congestion charge because he loves Londoners and listens to the vox populii. Do you really think the nuConservative party or a person such a Boris give two flying Geoffrey Archers about little old you and your car. Muahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahaahahahahahaahahahaahahahahaahahahahaahahahahaahahahahahahahahahah *gagh* hahaahahahaahahahaahahaahahaahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

Boris will as any other politician find someway to tax you poor buggering sheep, some kind of stealth olympics tax on parking in london, or increasing the congestion charge in central London to make up for the shortfall. Are you imbaciles ? since when has any politician knowingly cut thier own revenue without already having a private plan to get back or double the profit from the percieved public loss ? A good one to start is the end of student discount on public transport, which is ironic really as the majority of turnips who voted the rug-haired oik in are students bahahahahahahahahahahahahaahhaahahhaha.

@AC 15:29

You sir earn a gold commendation from me.

It's always amusing that enviro-mentalists always post sarcastically about their opponents having 'no imagination' when they themselves have been pedalling the same "OMG all cars are evil everyone should ride a bicycle like me" tripe for years and years. I'm actually all for clean transport, but arbitarily demonising a class of vehicle on the basis that it has less than 'x' seats is barking up the wrong tree completely.

err...

About time the extension went but why does it take so long?

The extension to the zone has killed so many small business's in the extension its frightening. I did an evaluation of business turnover in my sector when the first zone went in and saw revenue drops of 25% across the board, the western extension was worse as the business's where more dependent on trade having transport.

Bendy buses are also a joke, by making buses easier to get on and by making the green man last longer at the lights the elderly get weaker and weaker resulting in more falls and more hip fractures. The cost to the NHS over the next few years will be massive.

As for taking so long to remove it, why not switch it off tomorrow? After all, the public dont want it, business dont want it and most of the muppets who support it arent affected by it in the first place.

The lost revenue will be more than made up by the increased revenues from parking, corporation tax on business doing more trade, less business going bust etc etc.

As for the subsidies on public transport, pay what it costs to use it, dont expect the rest of us to help pay for your journey to work.

Lovely clamour - an unusual event?

Boris said what he was going to do, and now he is doing it.

Rather entertaining to see all those moaners attack a politician who actually does as he said.

Those who whine about Tories, one little tip: Tories know how to handle money - the stuff you need to keep an economy running. They are also less likely to be influenced by someone else with money, as far as I have seen the Labour government put up a "for sale" sign as soon as it was in power. We had an early indication of that astonishing lack of judgement when Blair was stupid enough to attend the UK launch of Windows 2000.

If you need evidence, just look at the surplus that Labour started with - it takes a brutal level of incompetence to turn it into the black hole of a deficit it is now. And that was AFTER they raided the pension funds you and I are expected to live on in many years to come, and AFTER year on year incremental oil profits (yes - petrol - who do you think gains the most from raising petrol prices?).

Boris: it's year one and he has a huge mismanaged mess to clean up (a bit like what Labour is trying to leave for the Tories with the ID Card scam). I think you will need to give him a bit of time - even for a new Labour incumbent it would be too early to tell. At least he's surveying the right people - I have seen how Ken surveyed if he didn't want to give those affected a chance with the tram affair in W London.

The idiots didn't even have proper emergency vehicle routes in their planning and cutting down over a 1000 mature trees wasn't a problem, even though that makes the character of the whole area - but who did they survey? People not affected at all.

Let me put an end to this rant with one other observation: even if you have the worst impression of Boris possible, it is an indication of just how bad Ken did when even Boris is expected to do a better job..

@ the real 'dumb fool'

“Do you really think the nuConservative party or a person such a Boris give two flying Geoffrey Archers about little old you and your car.”

Possibly not, but he has complied with the wishes of the populous; that’s what’s important.

“A good one to start is the end of student discount on public transport, which is ironic really as the majority of turnips who voted the rug-haired oik in are students”

I can think of a much better one - one which has already happened. A couple of years after Labour came to power, student grants were abolished (not just in London) and capped tuition fees were introduced. Since then the cap has been increased to over £3k (practically all unis have capitalised on this by charging the full whack for all their courses) and there’s talk of abolishing the cap altogether. Do you remember the Labour manifesto: "We have no plans to introduce University top-up fees, and have legislated to prevent their introduction." Ha! So are you really surprised students (especially those in London) have been giving conservatives their vote?

@ "Paul"

"So of course next January transport fares are skyrocketing, many to the tune of 11% or 12%. "

If you stopped to check your facts you'd find that TFL's long term "investment" plans have been predicated on rises significantly above inflation for several years now. That's why tube fares have already gone up 1/3 % over the same 4 or 5 years - and why Boris has started to cancel some of the more fanciful projects in order to avoid large fare rises at a time when the economy is shrinking.

I live there...

I live in the area and it doesn't really bother me. It's reduced the cars in the area slightly, and the cost to us as residents is fairly minor. It brings with it the benefit of being able to get into central London much cheaper...

I live in West Lonodn

Right in the corner of the Western Extension too. I am not impressed with either BoJo nor a large part of Daily Mail/Express/Star/Sun reading numpties who voted to get rid of the zone.

Traffic will go up. Journeys will take longer. There will be less buses. Road improvement schemes will be cancelled. Taxes will go up (for *everyone* not just car drivers).

Business will still go bust (hello recession?). Lots of tiny shit shops have gone but they were shit and useless anyway. Market stalls (Portobello) are being hit but that's cos there are less tourists and Supermarkets are beating them on price in many cases. There's still not enough parking anyway so genuine shoppers still have to walk or take public transport anyway.

People living in the West Central will lose their 90% residents discount for the Central zone.

Also don't ignore the fact that roadworks in this area have rocketed in the past two years while 'comparative' statistics have been collected. When they complete in the next year or so then the journey times will reach their potential under the C Charge before falling back to shit levels when the charge is removed. Roadworks including a multi-million pound replacement of water pipes by Thames Water and a major luxury flats, roadwork re-layout and gas mains replacement at Knightsbridge (reducing 3 lanes to 1).

For those posting that Boris knows what he is doing. Take a look back over his term so far. Not showing up to meetings. Hiring then immediately firing deputies. Trying to fob off transport onto a deputy.

So all you people who voted to remove the zone: get ready for a great big fat "I told you so" in 2012.

@Nathan Dennis: "As for the subsidies on public transport, pay what it costs to use it, dont expect the rest of us to help pay for your journey to work."

@ BlueGreen

"and the typical outcome is called the tragedy of the commons. Everyone piles in and the common resource gets destroyed, in this case usable bandwidth.

It happens with ethernet, what magic do you expect that will prevent it happening on roads?"

Something called 'time available to commute' perhaps?

It currently takes me 45mins to drive the 25 miles to work - I am OK with that. If the roads became so jammed that it regularly took me twice as long to get to work I would find an alternative mode of transport, move closer to work or find another job.

People do not use the roads for fun - we are trying to get somewhere. Make us WANT to use the public transport option instead of trying to FORCE us to use it....that way only failure lies.

Power Corrupts....

RE: By Steve Posted Thursday 27th November 2008 22:35 GMT

You seem to be working from the false premise that I'm a partisan supporter of nuLab... you are mistaken. I'll give you the real line on nuLabour... By 1997 the Conservatives had screwed this country so bad that people wanted a change so they all voted Labour... problem: Labour are no different to the Conservatives. We could spend days hashing out who has screwed over the people more; Conservatives privitised transport, Labour destroyed university education blah blah, but really if you just said "The Government privitised transport, The Government destroyed university education" you'd realise its the same old case of NuBoss same as the Old Boss.

@ AC (28th Nov 09:23)

I’m showing how student friendly conservative policy is compared to the other party who had prior power, hence demonstrating how students who voted for Boris weren’t “turnips”, so invalidating your example of the *possible* student hardship resulting from the scrapping of the CC.

@ Chris Matchett

Will there be fewer buses compared to before the introduction of the CC?

Also, would that mean that car drivers were indeed subsidising buses?

“Road improvement schemes will be cancelled.”

What on earth! How did we afford them before the CC?

“Taxes will go up”

Assuming it does, it tends towards making the rest of your input redundant – so make up your mind.

Don’t ignore the fact that traffic lights were randomised around London sometime before the introduction of the CC, then corrected again within the newly introduced CC zone.

“For those posting that Boris knows what he is doing.”

Perhaps he doesn’t, but he is acting upon what he is hearing – which is exactly what we want from a public servant.

“So all you people who voted to remove the zone: get ready for a great big fat "I told you so" in 2012.”

Would those be the same people who didn’t want their money wasted (in their opinion) on 2012?

I doubt you are a car driver: “the rest of us to help pay for *your* journey”…” to pay for *your* road schemes”; although you might be an owner:

“I live in West Lonodn … Right in the corner of the Western Extension too.”. Couple this with: “People living in the West Central will lose their 90% residents discount for the Central zone. “, either way it would explain why you’re so bitter about people being taxed less.

Last but far from least: “Journeys will take longer.”

I don’t know about you, but I prefer to wait an additional 30 minutes (and that’s being really generously pessimistic) for the extra £8 cash in hand each day. That must work out to be about £24 per hour before taxes.

Twice again, well done Boris. Democracy in action - long may it continue!